no drive letter assigned to second hdd

[sirenSong]

i have an old hard drive that i'm trying to recover files from. i have installed it as a secondary drive (slave) in my computer (which is running win98 se.) i can see it using the device manager and it says it's working properly. but there is no drive letter assigned in explorer, so i cannot access it. the old drive has windows files on it, if that makes a difference.

thanks!

[tetonbob]

Hi sirenSong-

Did you set the jumpers on the second HD to Slave? Is your BIOS set to autodetect Primary Slave?

Try uninstalling it from Device Manager and see if Windows picks it up upon reboot.

Bob

[sirenSong]

hi bob,

thanks for replying. yes, the jumper on drive 2 is set to slave. i'm not sure about the BIOS. i am pretty much a novice and just trying to see if i can make this work. i can see the old drive listed in device manager... says it's functioning properly. i have a lot going on in there in the way of drives: i believe i have a controller card, which is where my primary drive (master) is connected. then on that same ribbon, i have a zip drive (slave). on the second ribbon (which is connected directly to the motherboard) i have a dvd-r (master) and a dvd-rom (slave). when i put the old drive in the mix, i unplugged the zip and put it as slave on the ribbon connected to the controller card. another possible problem is that this old drive had win xp on it and the pc i'm trying to put it in has win98 se. i don't know if that could be the problem? any advice will be much appreciated!!

[tetonbob]

OK, when you boot the system, you should see on the POST screen (black screen with system info on it) something telling you to press Delete to enter setup, or perhaps Ctrl+Alt+Del, or F1. Do that and look for your IDE configuration setup. Ensure that your primary slave is set to auto. Without knowing your BIOS, I can't tell you more than to look around. If you don't change anything, you can't hurt it. When you are sure of what you are looking at, effect the change. Most BIOS will tell you how to nav around right there on the screen. To keep changes, you usually have to press F10, or some such.

Also, be sure the ZIP isn't listed with a drive letter still. It shouldn't be, but look in My Computer anyway.

Uninstall drive 2 from Device manager, reboot and see if Windows picks it up.

I don't think the fact that drive 2 has Windows files on it should affect what you are trying to do, but I could be wrong about that.

[sirenSong]

okay... i went into setup and checked the ide config. it WAS set to auto. the zip is not showing up in device manager or explorer, but drive 2 is still there. i tried removing it and restarting, it showed back up in device manager again but still not in explorer! i even tried going to the manufacturer's website (westerndigital) and downloading their diagnostic utility. both my primary drive and this drive were detected in the scan- and both show as functioning properly. could there possibly be some kind of issue with my controller card?

[tetonbob]

OK, try this-

In Device Manager, double click your disk 2. This should bring up the Properties page for the drive. On the settings tab, there is a box which shows the current drive letter assignment. See if you can change it there. Choose a letter in the middle of the alphabet.

I doubt it's an issue with your controller card, as it has been successfully supporting 2 drives.

You might also try to disconnect your CD drives and make drive 2 Secondary Master for the time it takes to get your data off it. Leave them physically installed, just remove the cables and connect drive 2.

[tetonbob]

Another thought just occured to me....is your drive 2 with WinXP formatted as NTFS? Win98 won't be able to see any files on that drive if that is the case. You could reverse the process you are attempting - slave the 98 drive to the XP system and move the files that way. The system with NTFS can view a FAT32 partition, but not the other way around.

[sirenSong]

when i try going to the settings tab, i do see the box where the drive letter is supposed to be assigned... but it's greyed out and there is no letter in it. i then tried what you suggested with disconnecting the dvd drives and putting drive 2 on that ribbon... still doesn't list in explorer. when i reversed the drives, making drive 2 the primary and drive 1 the slave, i just got a black screen after the post screen. it never would go into windows. this is so frustrating!! but i certainly do appreciate your help and advice. at this point, i'm thinking perhaps the data is going to be lost.:upset:

[tetonbob]

it's greyed out and there is no letter in it
I was afraid that might be the case.

Does drive 2 show in your POST screen?

Also, do you know if drive 2 is formatted as NTFS? Do you have access to a system runnning XP or Win2k which you could slave that disk to?

Can you view it from a command prompt? Boot to a Win98 startup disk, run fdisk to view drives only. Are there 5 options?

I'm sure there's an answer - just haven't thought of it yet. Maybe a third party disk manager such as Partition Magic might help assign a letter.

Anyone else care to chip in?

Patience and perserverance pay off in the long run. ;)

[pyramid]

when i reversed the drives, making drive 2 the primary and drive 1 the slave, i just got a black screen

when you did the above, did you adjust jumpers accordingly?